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[radiohead]

I am about to buy a new mac. My budget is under $2000 for the computer itself. Ive found the 400 G4 powerbook and the 733 G4 tower to be priced about the same. Obviously, the 733 tower is alot faster than the powerbook im looking at. But it seems that bjork, radiohead, etc... all talk about using powerbooks all the time. I know that having a portable unit would be great ease for transportation. But I am wondering if anyone has any suggestions on which i should get. Are there any advantages to the powerbook (other than portability, which is quite limited with the tower) over the tower? Also, i know that ill need some audio input..which ive seen is discussed on this site quite alot. Im just wondering if this would play into which computer i get. Im interested in getting a soundinput thats pretty cheap but still decent. Do these come on the towers? Or do you always have to buy a sound input seperate? FUrthermore...i would like to use my computer as a sampler...any suggestions on this? what software is good or would one be wise to just buy a separate sampler? any info contributed would be greatly appreciated. thanks so much. justin

[wfplb]

Really depends what exactly you want to do

[radiohead]

well. I am mostly interested in recording my own songs...mostly by myself. Im not gonna be doing any live band recording (maybe record live drums) but not whole live shows. I want to sample, sequence, and record onto the mac. Im interested in radiohead/pinkfloyd/sigurros type music that has lots of layers of sound and lots of different things going on. So.. maybe this helps you see what i want to do. thanks . justin

[Synthetic]

Unless you like being tied down to a workstation, I would suggest the G4 Titanium laptop. It is fast enough to handle almost anything you throw at it and think of the possibilites as far as your music creation. With a laptop, you can take your music on a trip or to a friends house, school or whatever. With a desktop system... yes you do get more horsepower for the buck but you are forced to one area for audio work unless you like carrying your tower and monitor all over the place.

I have a Blue and White tower G3 running ProTools LE and love it but I can't wait until I can afford a new computer and it will be a G4 laptop. There has been many times I wished I could work on music away from the house or heck... maybe just in another room.

So it all depends on your needs. If sitting in one area is fine for your music work... then by all means a G4 tower is great. But I would suggest a laptop just for the convience of portability.

This is something I'm deliberating on, among many things for my initial studio purchases...

I'd recommend, first, doing as much research as possible. The best resources I've found, so far, for computer music-related information is in the trade journals - Keyboard, EQ, Home Recording, Sound on Sound (the absolute best). Read them, then set them aside. Go online and search the forums. Formulate your best-case scenario. Then let it settle. Then go back and do another round of research, with some more mags, asking around at music shops, whatever. Get the information about HOW the equipment works. Get some hands on experience. Download demos, whatever. I've had a lot of experience with music recording equipment, so I know a little about what I'm looking for. I've found that over time, my initial impulses to buy certain types of gear change as I find out more about what's available.

The problem with the laptops is that you might be limited. I'm not even sure if they have a PCI card slot on them? Maybe one? You're stuck with that and the Firewire. OK, FireWire you can go with the MOTU 828 to get in digital audio and external hard drives, though I'm not sure how well ext. hard drives work on FireWire yet. Tascam has a USB interface for dig. audio & MIDI, but since it's USB, I doubt you can punch much through that all at the same time. If there is a PCI card, what kind of audio input cards can you get with that? Check all that out. You definitely need ext. gear for audio input whether you get the laptop or tower. The other limit is processing power, RAM expandability, and general expandability. Depends on how much digital audio you are talking about. From my observations, it looks like the Titanium can handle a good load of digital audio, but obviously not as much as the towers when you start to load on plug-ins, multi-application use, etc. The question is how far you want to go. The laptops may be good for toting around and recording, editing, mixing, etc. but may not have the power to mix/master at the pro level with dozens of tracks, MIDI, plug-ins all at the same time. So do your homework and see. I think for medium-level recording projects (not studio level engineering mixes) the Titanium will probably work out.

Basically, just figure out what you need and what can get you there in terms of RAM, processor speed, expandability, ports, external gear, compatability. Sounds like a lot, but there are many suitable options you can go with depending on your needs.